12:00pm - Today I rode a loop near my sister-in-laws house in Lyman, ME. After a few miles I noticed that I was moving along at a pretty good clip, so I decided to push a bit and see if I could maintain a 20mph average for the ride. The course was relatively flat, but towards the end there were a few big hills that killed my pace. Oh well, it felt great anyway!

Saturday - May 24

Swim

30m

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10:00am - First OWS of the season. Our team met at Walden Pond for some introductory drills (for many on the team it was their first OWS ever).

One of the drills we did was "swimming the gauntlet" which involved swimming between two columns of people who splashed, pushed and grabbed you. For this drill I was a "moving gauntlet" in that I swam alongside each swimmer before and after the gauntlet, harassing them as we went. It was fun, and a pretty good workout for me.

Friday - May 23

Thursday - May 22

Sport

Volleyball

2h 00m

9:30am - This morning I overslept so my bike/run did not happen, but I do feel a bit refreshed after a good night's sleep. Right now I'm thinking that I might push the brick off until tomorrow, since I'm not playing volleyball anymore on Friday nights.

Wednesday - May 21

Swim

1h 00m 05s

3000.00 yards

02m /100 yards

4 sets (15:03, 16:03, 15:03, 13:56)

3rd set with paddles

Estimated distance based on time and typical pace

9:00am - Last night proved to be pretty stressful and tonight looks to be the same, so I decided to drown my demons in the pool this morning. When I got to the pool there were three swimmers in the 20m lane and two in the shorter lane, so I went to the shorter lane and asked one of them (a guy) if we could circle. He said "Sure", so I waited for the other swimmer (a woman) to get back to the wall. When I asked her, she simply said "No, sorry" and started swimming away. Not being one to mess with this morning, I yelled as she got halfway down the lane "Well, I ain't gonna wait around for you to finish!" and started to hop in the pool. Before the "mean machine" got fired up and ran her down, the guy said to me "Don't worry, we can share, it's not fair to make you wait". He and I tried circling in one-half of the lane which worked okay, but then we decided to just swim 3-wide because the lanes are wider than usual. Of course, I picked the middle so I could blow right by the woman who pissed me off, passing her on every other lap.

After about 10 more minutes the guy gave me a wave as he got out of the pool, so we went back to splitting the lane side-by-side. About 20 minutes later the woman left, so I had the lane all to myself. By this time the pool was empty, so I swam up one side, down the other, up the middle, wherever I damn well pleased. It was lovely.

My plan for the rest of the day:

7:30pm - Teach swimming at YMCA

10:00pm - Around noon today I was still stressed out and started feeling like crap, and realized that I had sat at my desk for almost 10 minutes just "zoning out" without a single coherent thought going through my head. So, I took the rest of the day off as sick time and left at 1:00. After a 30-minute power nap on the train going home, I felt a bit better but still not great.

I would have blown off teaching tonight, but the other instructor was not going to be there. So I slogged through it, then went home and crashed.

8:00am - Well, after a good night's sleep and a little email chat with Coach Vic, I'm much better today. Coach Vic reminded me to "keep my eye on the ball", that the goal of this season is to successfully complete Timberman 70.3, not to place at the Marlboro Lions Sprint. I also have plenty of room for improvement in nutrition, body composition, strength, etc. which will help my running.

Plan for the day:

12:00pm - Spinning class (and having fun) - 40 min

7:00pm - Running (and having fun) - 45 min

1:30pm - Spinning class was wicked (yes, I said wicked) hard today, but fun as well. It was the last class for the instructor, who I really like but she's moving in a few weeks and having a baby soon.

Oddly enough, my experiences from racing the last two weekends kept me motivated on the bike today. Whenever I started feeling that the class was too hard, I reminded myself that I came in first on the bike in both races, and that I was plenty strong enough to hammer through a spinning class. By the end of class I was a bit tired, but I felt great.

6:00pm - Went for a run after work which was supposed to be 45 minutes, but my shins were hurting from the moment I started (even at a slow pace) so I had to call it quits after 30 minutes. Came home and had dinner with the family, iced my shins afterwards and the pain had subsided.

Monday - May 19

7:30am - Rest day after yesterday's race, other than mowing the lawn tonight after work.

9:30am - Weighed in with health coach at work today, dropped another .8 pounds last week. Probably would have been a bit more, but I pigged out last night after dinner - I was starving!

3:00pm - OK, so the results from yesterday have been posted, and now I am truly disgusted with myself. I had the fastest damn swim time and fastest damn bike time in my division, and I still came in fourth! Why? Because I cannot run worth a damn!